We are not products of our situations; we are products of our decisions

Whenever we come across various difficult situations in our life, we start feeling negative emotions like anger, irritation, self-pity. Even though such feelings may appear to be natural they do not have the right determine our consciousness.

There is no doubt that the situations and their associated emotions will certainly affect our consciousness but we can still choose what we have to focus our thoughts onto.


Unfortunately, most of the time we, unknowingly let our thoughts be obsessed with our negative emotions and hence end up even feeling more worst then what the situation actually demands for.

If we keep dwelling ourselves onto those negative emotions, it becomes a habit. We should keep a check on how often we dwell ourselves onto those emotions. 

Negative emotions are similar to the psychological emotions. Just like, if we keep scratching or rubbing our physical wounds they become even worse, if we keep worrying all the time about our negative emotions, our psychological wounds become worse.

If we allow our emotions to heal in spite of worrying about them all the time, they get healed in the due course.

So what we need to do in order to facilitate such healing?

We need to decide, to consciously redirect our thoughts towards something beyond those difficult situations.

How does Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge help us in such  decision – making?

Bhagavad Gita helps us to understand that we are much bigger than our situations – bigger not in an egoistic sense but in an integral sense.

According to Bhagavad Gita, we are eternal spiritual beings, part and parcel of the Supreme eternal being, Krishna; whereas our situations, no matter how worst and stressful they are, are temporary.

So complementing the above said statement the Bhagavad Gita offers was the time-honored process of Bhakti-yoga, through which we can redirect our thoughts towards Krishna. 

When, with full consciousness, we decide to focus our thoughts onto him, we regain inner strength to calmly face our difficulties & intelligently find the best way forward.

The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, Shloka 58 , assures us that when we become conscious of him, by his grace, we will cross over all the obstacles.

Therefore, our consciousness, our attitude & ultimately our destiny are not determined by our situations, but by our decisions.